This Month in History: April

April 1, 1972 – The Radical Feminist Collective founded the Pittsburgh Women’s Center to offer a range of services and cultural activities not met by existing institutions.

April 3, 1972 – NOW members picketed at Murphy’s Department Store in downtown Pittsburgh, in protest of sexist practices on the part of the store and the Teamsters Local Union 249.

April 10, 1975 – The Southwest PA NOW Chapters staged a Day of Outrage outside West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh to protest the Hospital’s policy to provide no abortion services.

April 11, 1980 – Pennsylvania NOW’s Anti-Racism Task Force sponsors the Second Conference on Racism and Sexism in Philadelphia.

April 29-30, 1980 – NOW members ride buses from Pittsburgh to Springfield, IL to lobby legislators to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment

APRIL BIRTHDAYS

April 4, 1942 (2006):  Carol Wharton Titus was co-founder of the racially integrated East End chapter of NOW and was one of the original members of Wildsisters, a women’s collective that operated a restaurant, café, performance space and art gallery by the same name in the early 1980s.

April 19, 1925 (2010): Jo Ann Evansgardner was co-founder and first president of the Association for Women in Psychology. She was a co-founder of K.N.O.W., Inc, the first feminist press in the United States, and served as co-president of Pittsburgh NOW. Her leadership and activism was a driving force in the women’s movement in Pittsburgh throughout the 1970s.